You're Still You
by Bonsoir
Summary: FE7. Kent was honest with me when he didn't have to be. "It looks terrible." (Kent/Lyndis, and more introspective than it sounds.)


**Title:** You're Still You  
**Characters:** Kent/Lyndis  
**Genre:** Romance  
**Words:** 4,088  
**Notes:** Let me give a shoutout to Sentury, who is a true badass, braving the wilds of FFN. July 15th was his birthday, and this 'fic is a little late, but this is for him. He said he wanted a "good" representation of one of my FE7 flagships, so he gets this. I haven't written this pairing in a while and I make no promises of it being "good" but I hope you like it anyway! I'm sorry that it's in first person but I did four drafts in third and none of them would be written, so I listened to my writerly brain and went with first person. Hopefully I hit the mark by writing from Lyn's perspective.

* * *

_You walk past me,  
I can feel your pain.  
Time changes everything,  
One truth always stays the same:  
You're still you.  
After all,  
You're still you._

* * *

Kent was honest with me when he didn't have to be.

This happened some time ago, during my first year in Caelin. My mother used to tell me that I had a knack for making friends, and by the time Kent and Sain saw me safely to Caelin, I'll admit I already considered the two of them my friends. In fact, Grandfather refers to them as my "particular knights" when in good spirits, probably because I was very attached to them upon my arrival to Caelin and I knew they would answer my questions with honesty and without scoffing at my ignorance in asking such silly things.

My mother also used to say that love was very subtle and could almost never be traced to a particular beginning. It was hard to believe; how could a person not know when they first fell in love? Love was such a big deal that it seemed weird to me that someone would forget that particular important detail: when it began.

Kent's being honest isn't really so surprising; he's been nothing but honest since I first met him, after all, and Sain will always vouch for Kent's sometimes-brutal honesty.

But this was a special case.

It was my grandfather's birthday. To honor his birthday, he decided that a big party would be in order, and people were invited from all over to help celebrate. He was very gracious and ordered a special dress for me to wear to the event.

The only problem was that I _hated_ it. The dress, that is. It was ridiculous—yards and yards of fabric!—and there were jewels all over it. All I could think when I put it on was…well, everything. I thought about a number of things while they did my hair and pinned it up. I'm sure it was a beautiful dress, but it didn't feel beautiful on me; it just felt like a waste. How many other clothes could be made with this fabric, I wondered, and how many could be fed with each jewel that was sewed into the bodice?

The last three times I saw myself in a mirror I did nothing but complain and fuss, so they refused to let me see myself before the party. I wasn't so stupid I didn't know how I looked, and any compliments I received that night made me brand many a man and a few women as liars despite my best attempts to remember that they were being "polite" which at the time I was certain was just a Lycian's way of lying. I have since been informed that I believed wrongly.

It was only toward the end of the night, when I finally managed to sneak away to my rooms, that I saw Kent for the first time all day. He was dressed as usual and walking with purpose—also as usual. He has never been known to meander anywhere, so I could only assume that he was on duty, which was a shame, as the party had such nice food. When I told him my thoughts, he gave one of his very tight smiles, and gave an almost unnoticeable shrug of his shoulders before he asked me, very politely, how I was doing.

I took that to mean that he had no interest in the party, which I have since learned is true; Kent does not care for impersonal social gatherings of any sort. I started to answer him with a usual comment about how I was doing fine, instead of being completely honest and telling him that I was exhausted from being awake from sunup and I could scarcely breathe in my dress (an attempt on my part to be "polite" because, Chancellor Reissmann told me, nobody wants to hear about how you're _really_ doing), but something about his expression stopped me.

It was a very curious expression. Usually his interest in something was veiled, but this time it was quite clear: he was staring at my dress.

"What do you think?" I asked, and did a little turn for him. I wouldn't have done it, but I was tired and I'd had some wine and I thought it was funny that he might actually be interested in something as silly as a dress.

"It looks terrible."

I didn't even respond to that. After completing my turn I just stared at him and watched his eyes grow wide. I had never noticed before that his eyes were an actual color—brown—or that he had a couple of faint freckles across the bridge of his nose, but I noticed it then, as his face turned a dark red and his expression changed to what I can only assume was horror.

I must have looked angry as I tried to bite my lip to keep from laughing because he began to stammer after he recovered his senses; clearly he had not intended to say that aloud.

"L-Lady Lyndis, I—I don't… My sincerest apologies, I…"

Before he could beg me to forgive him or any other such silly thing, I just laughed. He sounded almost like Florina on a good day and my laughing just made him more flustered and embarrassed and he redoubled his efforts to apologize.

"I should not have said that! I-I had no right to even _think_ it. Please, Lady Lyndis…"

But he didn't seem able to finish his sentence, probably because I was only half-listening to him anyway. I don't think Kent's ever had a girl laugh at a joke of his, because I bet he's never told one, but he just seemed like the funniest person in the world at that moment, standing with me in a deserted corridor falling all over himself to apologize for—of all things!—telling the truth.

I finally took pity on him and touched his arm. "You're forgiven," I managed to say without laughing. I know it seems stupid to forgive someone when you feel they've done no wrong, but I learned quickly that if you do not forgive Kent, he will only try harder to hear those words instead of just letting himself believe that by some miracle of Saint Elimine, you have forgiven him. He needs to hear it. I've not met many people who feel that way.

He seemed relieved but tried to apologize again, though I cut it off right away. "Don't be silly," I said. "I value honestly. So tell me, truly: how bad is it?"

He looked nervous, but the color of his face returned to something close to normal before he admitted, "You look nothing like yourself, my lady."

I nodded, feeling annoyed only because my suspicions were confirmed. "Well, I'm not surprised," I told him. "The other times were just as bad, I think."

"Yes," he agreed, and then looked guilty.

Before he went off on another apologetic spiel, I just patted his arm and took my leave. I was tired and couldn't wait to get to sleep. It took two handmaids twenty minutes to get my dress off of me, and then just to spite everyone I refused to let them hang the dress in my wardrobe. The next morning I hung it myself, remembering that it was a gift from my grandfather and that I should treasure it, but I treasured a great many other things from him far more than anything material, like the stories about my mother as a little girl, or the hilarious tales of General Wallace's heroic deeds, or even just the way he'd sometimes squeeze my hand to fill in silences in our conversations.

It took me a few weeks to really appreciate Kent's honesty. It was funny, and Florina laughed when I told her about it—though I swore her to secrecy, because I had a feeling that Sain finding out about it would be a bad idea—but that was all it was for some time. After a while I realized that he could have been "polite" about it, as so many others had been, but maybe the dress wasn't objectively unattractive.

A few months later I revisited it in the back of my wardrobe. I spread it out over my bed when I was alone one afternoon, and gave it a long look. It was a beautiful dress, and when Florina came to see me, I let her try it on. She looked beautiful, and when I twisted up her hair behind her head so that she could see herself in the mirror, she said she wished her sisters could see her looking so ladylike.

When the dress was put back into its proper place, I could only wonder at Kent's comment. He had stared at the dress, had said it looked terrible, and had then said I looked nothing like myself. Was that a compliment? Or had it been a veiled insult?

It seemed like a compliment, but I was still learning Lycian culture and the only thing I had learned was that the men went to the women. Men asked women to dance at parties and men seated their wife before themselves at meals. Men asked women for permission to court and for their hand in marriage.

I was very confused about all of those things, and spent a great many hours thinking about them. Why do men in Lycia ask for a woman's _hand_ in marriage? What significance is a hand? I learned that Chancellor Reissmann did not want to hear about how different things had been in Sacae for me; when I said that when you want to "marry" someone in Sacae, you just tell them that you want to share hearts and souls and meals with them forever, the look he gave me was enough to discourage me from ever speaking of Sacae to him again.

"Things are different here," he said. "You must get used to it."

I felt conflicted from thereon out. I could change if I tried hard enough, but no matter how hard I tried, some small part of me rebelled. I wanted to learn the etiquette, but I wanted to do it without wearing pinching shoes.

I thought I was done with battles but it was, in the middle of an etiquette lesson, that the entire castle turned into chaos. Bells rang loudly and guards clamored for the gates, but Caelin was not a well-protected castle and I ran toward my grandfather's rooms as soon as I realized what was going on; we were being invaded.

Kent and Sain met me halfway there, but refused to allow me to go any further. I remember very little after that; I fought Kent and Sain both as hard as I could but they dragged me out of the castle a back way through the dungeons, and Wil and Florina met us on the other side. I must have been in near hysterics because I distinctly remember Florina telling me that I needed to calm down, and that was odd to me because I was always the one saying that to her.

When it was all over I had to apologize to Kent and Sain, for making their duty difficult; it was at my grandfather's insistence that they took me and fled, or, they both assured me, they would have tried to take him, too.

But he was the marquess, Kent later told me, and a good marquess goes with his castle just like a captain goes down with his ship.

I realized that I understood, because my father had done the same thing.

That didn't mean it hurt any less.

Kent must have felt he failed in some way for not staying to defend the castle with my grandfather, but my grandfather's orders had been for him to defend me, and he had fulfilled that duty. I don't think he regrets following orders, but I learned through that conversation that when Kent feels something, it is wholehearted, and those weeks that Castle Caelin was in Lord Darin of Laus's hands, Kent felt very conflicted…about how he _should_ feel.

In the months that followed, I fought my own confliction, but I had become conflicted over a great many things. I started to wonder about every comment that Kent said, and I tried to pick them apart. Some days he would be very kind to me, and others he would act as if he hardly knew me at all.

As terrible as it was of me to question his friendship, I did, but I was a coward about it. Every time I tried to ask I remembered that in Lycia, things are done differently. The men ask the women. So then, did they ask about friendships, too? Did Kent care about such things? I wasn't sure. He was a stickler for the rules, but I couldn't wait forever for an answer; I don't possess such patience.

When I finally asked, he assured me that he did care for me, and that helped. A little.

But how much did he care? A lot? Just a normal amount? And I felt so _silly_ for thinking about something so unnecessary when we worried we might lose our lives at any moment.

I started to wonder what might make him like me more, and if those things would make my grandfather like me more, too. Would I be a better granddaughter for him if I learned all of the etiquette I had quietly refused to learn? Would Kent like that, too?

It was Eliwood who finally told me that I had stopped sounding like myself, asking him so many questions about how to be a lady, and he helped me see that I was trying to… I don't know. I had convinced myself that it was betterment that was for my benefit as well as Caelin's, and maybe there would be some nice side effects with how Kent viewed me, but after talking it over with Eliwood, I realized that I was going about everything all wrong.

Even Hector would say that if someone didn't like him just as he was, they weren't worth his time.

So what was I doing, worry about silly things like that?

The truth was, I _wanted_ Kent to like me. I wanted him to look at me like Eliwood looked at Ninian. I couldn't have placed a finger on when I started feeling that way, but seeing him always made me happy and talking to him always lifted my spirits and I loved the exact tone of his voice in the morning and I knew the sound of his boots against the ground anywhere… I loved him. I had fallen in love with him. And I realized that nobody remembers when they first fell in love because it just doesn't matter. I loved him at that moment and _that_ was all that mattered.

But if he didn't like me as I was, then it would hurt too much to have to change to make him like me.

By the time I reached this epiphany, we were fighting across the Dread Isle to face Nergal, and I finally managed the courage to speak to Kent about it.

I was very honest. I told him that I _could_ change myself, but I didn't _want_ to; I wanted people to like me just as I was, especially him.

And his response was so simple. He only said that he was glad. Just like that: "I'm glad." And he smiled a little, looking genuinely pleased.

And then, as I sat there looking surprised and feeling uncertain, he added, sounding a little embarrassed:

"I like you."

And I knew he meant more than just that he _liked_ me. Because he liked _me_. And that meant a lot to me in that instant, because it told me exactly what he meant by his comment about that dress all those months earlier; he hadn't liked it because it kept me from looking like and acting like and _being_ like _me_.

I could have cried to hear it, though, something stupid like, "I like you," because most people are waiting for "I love you," and they'd call me a fool for being so elated to hear something that seems so _simple_. But it's _not_ simple. Kent is the type to only say the world "love" when it really means something, when he knows he's never going to feel any other way.

Still, I shoved aside Lycian tradition and kissed him first, right then, and he couldn't wonder at my watery eyes because he closed his right away and kissed me back.

* * *

Kent says that in Lycia the women wait for the men in their nuptial bed. But I told him that since we're in Sacae, we have to do things the Sacaen way, or at least as close as we can get. Even though he's supposed to build the first-night tent, I helped him with it as best I could. I know it's not perfect but it _looks_ perfect.

In Sacae, I informed him, the man waits for their woman to come to them. The tent is pitched at least a mile from the rest of the tribe, to afford some privacy, and the woman gets to wear whatever she wants into the tent. Not that she keeps it on for very long.

He agreed to it more quickly than I thought he would, but I realize now that he's a bit shyer than he lets on, and he would probably be nervous to have to come to me, because he is not prideful nor does he ever make any effort to show off his body.

This is a shame, but I don't mind because I'm happy for the chance to show myself off to him.

In Sacae, after two people are joined together, those approaching marriageable age, and those who are unmarried, are kept with the rest of the tribe until sunup when they are let loose to prank the newly-joined couple. Sometimes they don't do much, but in my first (and only) year participating in the ritual, we brought the tent down on the couple and they emerged fully clothed, anticipating it, laughing like it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen.

Kent and I won't have to worry about that, but it makes me a little sad.

Still, today is no time to think about things like that.

I take a deep breath, and I open the flap to the tent.

"Oh, Lyn," he says, and for some reason I am struck with the thought that he sounds almost as if he's going to cry.

"What do you think?" I ask, teasingly, and turn a little circle for him.

I spent the three weeks before we left Caelin trying to figure out what to wear for this night. Florina told me that culture was different everywhere, but she'd heard in Pherae the husband takes off the wedding dress, and in Ilia the woman wears something really sexy but nothing else, and in other places, different things were commonplace. I didn't believe her when she said that in Ostia, the woman just wears a plain nightgown as some kind of symbol of simple purity but maybe she was right.

It was difficult to decide what to wear, what would be perfect, what would look best.

He pulls me down into his arm and just _holds_ me. I sigh, because my chosen garment was actually no garment at all, and I can feel his skin against mine—one of the best feelings I've ever felt. Such intimacy. Such care. I love him so much in that instant that it almost hurts.

"You're _you_," he murmurs, and pulls back to look at me. His eyes wander down eventually, but they return to my face and his thumb brushes over my cheek. "Beautiful as always," he says, and holds me again for another moment in time.

Kent is slow and gentle and afraid of hurting me, but I know he'll never hurt me on purpose and that makes it easy—easy to kiss him back, easy to match his pace, easy to look him in the eye and tell him when something feels good.

He tells me he loves me. It's not the first time, but it feels like it, because of the way he says it: loud, and riding on the end of a moan.

He's always been quiet before—the occasional soft murmured, "I love you," in the castle corridors.

But this—this is raw, and real, and wonderful.

When the night is over and morning breaks across the horizon, we're lying together in comfortable silence, listening to the sounds only dawn provides: wide-awake birds and tired crickets and the rustling of the grass in the wind.

I want to cry because I am home, but that would be stupid, so I don't.

I just take Kent's hand and squeeze it, and he squeezes mine back.

I'm surprised when he breaks the silence. "Sain says that every woman wants to know when their husband first fell in love with them, but," he lifts a hand up to sift through his hair, "I don't remember anything specific. Nothing…in particular."

I just smile. "Well, I do. For me."

But then I'm second-guessing myself.

"Maybe it didn't start everything," I amend, "but it made me think about you a lot. That has to count for something."

"If you say the time I told you that you looked terrible I feel that I should apologize for that again…because that was not what I meant."

"I know," I say. "And you're forgiven for it, of course. I'm glad you said it, though."

"What? Why?"

"Because," I say, sounding defensive, because I know how stupid it sounds, "I was feeling very conflicted about a great many things and all everyone did all night was say how _great_ I looked and I was sure they were lying to me."

"I did not mean to affirm the opposite."

"I know. You just confirmed something else, that took me a while longer to figure out."

"Which was…?"

"That I only _feel_ that I look good when I look like myself."

"You do look good when you look like yourself." He turns over to look at me and lets my hand go to rest his on my hip.

"Good, because that's all you'll see me as for the rest of my life."

"Or mine," he tells me, as if afraid to lose me already.

"Or yours."

"Lyn," he says softly, after a while, "I don't know how to make any woman happy." He looks embarrassed, maybe ashamed. I hate that he might feel that way. "What can I do to make you happy?"

So I say the only thing I can think of to say, which is what he's been telling me all along, just in his own way. "Just be you."

"Me?" he asks.

I turn to look at him. "Yes, you."

His lip twitches but he sounds calm when he says, looking me right in the eye: "As you wish, my lady."

I can't help it: I laugh. Is that a joke?

He smiles.

It is!

Two can play at that game, though. "Well," I murmur, pressing close to him to give him a kiss, but making sure he can feel all my skin against his, "if you like taking orders…"

"Yes?" He sounds eager to please, which is good.

So I pull away to sit up. "Start building us a house."

He doesn't say anything, but he slowly sits up too, as if wanting to follow my "orders" but afraid to at the same time, because he can't tell if I'm joking or not.

I lean over and kiss him, laughter bubbling up at the confused expression on his face. "We can do that tomorrow."

"But it's already dawn," he says.

"I know," I tell him, kissing him again as I push him down so that his back is against the ground. "Tomorrow."

He's not even two inches from my face, but he smiles and then brushes back my hair and says, "I love you, Lyn."

And then I'm the one holding him, just holding him, because Sacae is home, and Kent is home, and to have both of them together at the same time makes my eyes water and when Kent sees it he'll think he's done something to hurt me somehow and I want to postpone that, just for a little while.

* * *

_And in this cruel and lonely world,  
I found one love:  
You're still you.  
After all,  
You're still you.  
_-You're Still You, by Josh Groban


End file.
